Ok this bunch cost £12..4 in 2 £3 for a fiver deal and rest £1 from remnants of the great Florida Container dump of October 2025. Rough Trade imported a huge load of chuck our USA vinyl as Student bait and it worked for a while then everything got reduced from £5 each (crazy) to a more reasonable £1. In amongst this stuff I found some gems which I still going through.
Hamilton Camp: here’s to you. Warner Bros 1968.
Not very exciting cover until I turned it round and I saw this
Now that is A-List Wrecking Crew band in a Hollywood Studio. Not a bad musician anywhere and anything with Van Dyke Parks (Brian Wilson’s mate) on …and Hal Blaine…no-brainer. Bud Shank plays flute on brasilian feel Seven Circles.
It’s a stunner sunshine baroque pop by an English actor who started pre Dylan with Bob Gibson. Apparently Camp also had a Paths to Victory Lp which a stunner too giving great renditions of then obscure Dylan songs not on general release.(it on my list). I played it several times still a winner slight marks on one track but well worth a quid. Production is pure Van Dyke Parks feel..special. Best song Travellin in the Dark. Written by a couple who managed and worked with Cream and the wife ended up shooting partner. Could I make that up the song is so wonderful like a weird Nebraska out-take.
So here’s a £3 LP (£2.50) and again a cracker I went with cover basically felt right..
Turns out I right this guy not only a revered Jazz player from 1950s onwards but wrote the Hollies song he ain’t heavy he’s my brother and the theme music for the film Taste of Honey. If hat not enough he produced a whole load of Lps including a Nana Mouskouri Lp which apparently fab called Nana.
Didn’t sing that much but here he does and it is sublime. Another Warners Brothes Lp 1971 a promo copy.
Favourite track hard to say maybe this one…Willoughby Grove this pre Elton John Tumbleweed the guy a ace…has feel of best of Mickey Newbury high praise indeed.
Full album here….rarely does a lost classic actually deserve the accolades this does..
https://reflectionrecords.bandcamp.com/album/robert-william-scott
Third LP is a tad dissapointing looked up the UK artist was a writer and member of Ronnie Lane’s Slim Chance band and actually co-wrote How Come with Ronnie. The Lp title seemed promising and some of the tracks are good but it just lacks a killer song. Produced by The Shadows drummer Tony Meehan on label financed by same people who brought you the Marmalade label including Blossom Toes which Kevin W was in. Best track probably ‘The Girl’ which reminds me of a Robert Forster solo track. I like rock and roll is pure Canvey Island pub rock.
Fourth oldie is a right puzzler. Has Nils lofgren and bonnie Rait on BUT its batshit. Mr Johnson admits to be being both brilliant and having some substance issues including going AWOL on record company advance with John Cale…..PETER C JOHNSON
This his first LP was home-made in a McCartney way i.e. some pretty expensive kit lying around and sounds outrageously good yet the songs are KAK. Real post Robert Palmer Punk never going to happen MOR kak. I will post one you will get gist.
Peter C. Johnson was one of the driving forces in the Boston music scene in the late ’60s. His singer/songwriter style was a big influence on the young musicians coming through the area, including a relatively unknown Bruce Springsteen. He teamed with Astral Weeks session player John Payne to form the Manic Depressives, a band best known for backing Bonnie Raitt, although they performed with Howlin’ Wolf numerous times during this period. The band broke up following a fistfight at a gig, and Johnson disappeared for a few years. When he reemerged, he had completely rethought his approach, this time performing with six mannequins and a fortune in electronic equipment that provided a chorus of voices and music behind what he was playing on-stage. He released a self-titled album on A&M, which was a critical success but never quite caught on with the record-buying public. On top of this, a poor contract left him penniless after his touring expenses caught up with him. He recorded an album with John Cale soon after, but eventually disappeared after trying to rehab his drug problem.
Ok so that the old stuff now a couple of what RT refers to as wobbly wax which can cover a multitude of sins. In some cases and I suspectthese two a case in point its old stock that been lying on shelf since day one so ends up reduced. I had passed these two many times to point where at £3 each seemed worth investigating. I had ehard of TJO a bit as a artist that had worked with James Elkington and Steve gunn good sign. Iwas pleasantly surprised the LP is very ambient/transcendental blues and more mellow than mellow. Still worth a £3 dive. filed with Owls of the Swamp in contemporary singer/writer mystics territory. You can guess most of that by the cover.
Chose this track as it seems to be a Navajo chant vibe..
finally another £3 ‘wobbler’ and bought purely on basis of label Village Green is contemporary ambient/electronic/classical label my freind Pete astor side project with David Sheppard Ellis Island Unit released on this label. Chris Morphitis is world/ambient/electronic bit of Steve Reich in this track but pretty eclectic overall.
So there you go what can you get for a tenner these days….there your answer Ok £12…..its only numbers.
